Speculation has been rife about the departure of Victorian WorkSafe’s CEO, Greg Tweedly since it was announced on 11 January 2012. Crikey (not available online) has aired questions about Tweedly’s lack of action on workplace bullying which WorkSafe has been accused of not addressing. The Age newspaper has juxtaposed the Liberal Government’s use of $A471 million … Continue reading “CEO departure has no apparent controversy”
According to The Australian newspaper on 5 January 2012 the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) is extremely critical of Safe Work Australia’s draft Code of Practice on Workplace Bullying. The ACTU has said that the draft code has a “fundamental flaw” “… the failure to address workplace bullying in the same framework as any … Continue reading “Disagreement on workplace bullying strategy increases in Australia”
The 28 December 2011 edition of the Australian Financial Review (AFR) (not available online) quotes Australian labour lawyer, Michael Tooma, talking about the harmonisation of workplace safety laws: “It’s descended into a farce, a shambles – only four jurisdictions are ready for the laws.” This seems supported by the words of the recently-appointed Workplace Relations … Continue reading “Lawyer says OHS harmonisation has become a shambles”
Most managers complain about “silos” even though they often operate comfortably in one. Having an organisational structure that operates without narrow parameters of professional turf is very difficult and sustainable change takes time. Similarly many professions operate in silos and the safety profession is a good example. Rarely does it “play well with others”. A recent workplace relations survey report from … Continue reading “Business silos extend to, and are supported by, the soft professions”
Yesterday morning, Mike Hammond of the Australian law firm, Norton Rose, conducted a seminar on the harmonisation of Australia’s work health and safety laws. This was the last in the current series of seminars on this topic but Hammond’s seminar differed considerably from previous sessions. Hammond is clearly less than enamoured with the model Work … Continue reading “Labor lawyer raises strong concerns over new Work Health and Safety laws”
The SafetyAtWorkBlog inbox this afternoon received a document entitled “The Work Health Safety Bill – Review and Economic Impact Estimates” by consulting firm, Hudson Howells. SafetyAtWorkBlog has been advised that this report was recently prepared at short notice on behalf of the Housing Industry Association (HIA). It may be one of the documents seen by at least one South Australian … Continue reading “Opinion to HIA based on estimates, assumptions and unverified data”
An article in the Weekend Australian newspaper and magazine (not available fully online) provides some statistics that raise serious questions about the level of bullying in workplaces in Australia, with particular focus on Victoria. Of the 2,080 complaints lodged with WorkSafe Victoria in 2010-11 “only eight were deemed serious enough to warrant possible prosecution.” Yet the OHS regulator received 7,050 inquiries … Continue reading “Workplace Bullying is a significant challenge even if the reality is smaller than expected”